“Hell, no. I mean, yes, I was, but . . .” He turned to look at her. “It made you worth having. If you hadn’t come back to me, I would have been angry, maybe forever, but you did return. And all these years I’ve secretly enjoyed the ribbing about having a wife who was a New York dancer.”
“I failed at being a dancer. That’s why I returned.”
Alan took her hand in his. “You’ve never failed at anything in your life. If you think you weren’t as good as the other dancers, it’s because you missed me so much that you wanted to fail so you could come home to me.”
Leslie knew that there was a ring of truth in his words. Madison had been so homesick that she’d run back to a man who she knew was bad. Had Leslie done the same thing? Had she, too, found an excuse to run back home?
After she’d left Hal’s family’s estate, she’d gone back to college and she’d danced. And there was part of her mind that had wondered how good the girls in New York were if she was considered not as good.
And Leslie had spent two weeks with Alan, a much younger Alan than this one, but the same man. And she had felt the same overwhelming love for him that had been in her heart since she’d met him on the playground in the first grade.
“Alan,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I can paint.”
“You can do anything.”
“No. I mean, on paper. Scenes. Actually, I’m good at people. Watercolors, although I’m going to explore some other media.”
He couldn’t seem to comprehend what she was telling him. “Do you still want a . . . you know?”
“Do you?”
“Me?” he asked, shocked. “I never wanted a divorce. I just wanted you back.”
That’s the way Leslie felt also, that she had been missing for a long time.
When Alan pulled her into his arms, she began to cry.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said. “And I love you so much. I always have. Remember? I told you that I would always love you.”
Yes, she remembered. He’d told her on that first day when they were in the first grade, that he would love her “forever.” She’d just stood there by the swings and stared at that boy she’d never seen before, unable to say anything.
The memory made her cry harder, and he held her closer; then he was kissing her neck, and his hands were unbuttoning her clothes. And when Joe opened the door, Alan shouted at him to get out.
It was later, after they’d made love on the floor of the summerhouse, that Leslie said, “Alan, fire Bambi.”
“Done,” he said; then he began to kiss her neck again.
Epilogue
Thirty-two
THREE YEARS LATER
MAINE
Ellie had left Jessie and her son in Bangor as she drove up the coast alone. Jessie hadn’t asked too many questions, but she could tell that he wanted to know why she felt compelled to go back to the place where she’d spent just a weekend years before. “It’s something I need to do,” was all she’d tell him. Something she felt driven to do, she thought, but she didn’t want to go into that.
She had kissed them both good-bye, then had driven to that town where her life had changed so drastically. But now she’d been in town for three hours and she still hadn’t found the Victorian house of Madame Zoya. She’d asked a waitress who said she’d grown up in the little town, but the girl had only laughed at the idea of a psychic setting up business in town.
“You mean a palm reader?” the girl had said.
“She was a bit more than that,” Ellie had answered defensively, but she couldn’t tell this girl what had happened to her any more than she could tell anyone else what had happened. A couple of times in the last years she’d tried to tell Jessie, but she could see that he wasn’t going to believe her, so she’d stopped.
But in the last six months Ellie had felt an overwhelming urge to return to Maine and see the psychic again. It had taken a while to persuade Jessie and to arrange the trip, but she’d managed it.
Ellie left the restaurant and tried to remember how she and Leslie and Madison had found the street and the house the first time. Before she’d left home, she’d searched everywhere for Madame Zoya’s card, but she couldn’t find it. She’d e-mailed both Leslie and Madison, but they couldn’t find theirs either. Somehow, Ellie wasn’t surprised.
She wandered down the main street yet again, looking at all the street signs that branched off, not that there were many, but there was no Everlasting Street. Then, she turned, and there it was.